104 
THE RAT. 
would jump througli a little hoop, or dance while its master 
whistled ; and, lastly, it would finish its performance by- 
running round after its tail, or rolling over on its back from 
side to side, to the great amusement of the lookers-on. After 
that it would stand on its hind-legs to beg ; and the instant 
a coin was thrown down, it would pick it up in its mouth, 
and carry it to its master. 
Some gentlemen, who had been listening to his narration, 
suggested that a rat was but a rat, and as he had been so 
successful in training one, why could he not train another ? 
it would be but a work of time. This idea, it would appear, 
had never before struck him, and seemed to throw a bright 
ray of sunshine upon his prospects. The poor man smiled, 
and after thanking them most gratefully for their kindness 
towards him, went his way, evidently determined to try his 
abilities in the art of training another pet rat. 
The " Quarterly Keview " relates a circumstance where- 
in a sharp battle was fought between a game hen and 
a rat, in which the hen proved victorious by killing her 
grizzly opponent. But a gentleman living at Kensing- 
ton, had previously experienced a very different result 
from a parallel case. A large rat paid a visit to his hen- 
house, wherein he had a number of fine Spanish fowls, and 
among them a favourite game-hen, which was the champion 
of the roost. It would appear, from the loud cackling and 
unusual disturbance among the fowls, and the quantity of 
feathers strewed about the place, that she had had a long 
and hardy struggle for victory, but was unsuccessful, since, 
instead of her killing the rat, the rat killed her. Great was 
the gentleman's disappointment on going to the roost ; for 
instead of finding a number of new-laid eggs, he found the 
poor game-hen with her neck and shoulders dragged down a 
large rat-hole. On attempting to take her up, he felt that 
something was detaining her ; so he gave her a good tug, 
when the rat, in his anxiety to retain the prize, allowed him- 
self to be dragged half-out of the hole before he would relin- 
quish his hold. 
A gentleman told me of a battle between a rat and a 
Bantam cock, of which he was an eye-witness. He stated, 
that at his seat in Yorkshire there was a beautiful lawn be- 
hind, into which the diuiug-room opened by folding windows. 
